Report: Disney+, Max, Peacock Will All Be Profitable by Q1 of 2025, Earlier Than Predicted

Make some room, Netflix; the profitable streamers club is set to admit at least five new members, according to a prediction from the London-based Ampere Analysis. Ampere is predicting that Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, and Paramount will all see their respective primary streaming services become profitable by the first quarter of 2025.

• Ampere predicts that Disney+ will reach profitability first in Q1 of 2024.
• Peacock will take the longest to become profitable, but will still achieve that goal ahead of schedule in early 2025.
• Profitability means these streamers will officially be able to move past content cuts and look toward building their offerings once again.

When Is Profitability Coming for Major Studio Streamers?

The legacy media companies around Hollywood collectively bit the bullet in 2023. After the market shifted in 2022, Wall Street investors decided that until streaming could prove that streaming was a profitable business, they would send their money elsewhere. No longer would they shower companies with investments simply because they turned in big new subscriber totals every quarter.

That meant that streaming platforms would have to trim down, in terms of staff and content, as well as lean harder on their ad-supported streaming tiers and increase costs on their ad-free plans. Streamers like Disney+, Hulu, and Paramount+ all cut content from their libraries and raised prices this year, but new data from Ampere Analysis suggests the moves will pay off. Excluding sports operations like ESPN+, Ampere is projecting all streaming services from the legacy studios in Hollywood will be profitable quarter-to-quarter by the first quarter of 2025.

Disney’s entertainment streamers Disney+ and Hulu are predicted to cross that finish line first. Ampere says they will be profitable by the first quarter of 2024, which is a full two quarters earlier than Disney executives had previously predicted. Warner Bros. Discovery will be a close second, and in fact, has turned in small profits from its streamers Max and discovery+ already in 2023. Paramount+ and Peacock will be regularly profitable by Q1 of 2025.

Best yet for these companies, their streaming platforms will be generating serious money by 2028. Using just their current market footprint to make a forecast, Ampere says most legacy media companies will make $1 billion to $2 billion in profits every year by 2028, with Disney predicted to make the most at $1.9 billion minimum every year.

Why Does Streaming Profitability Matter?

If streaming becomes profitable, that will allow operators to put a halt to content cuts that have so angered fans of titles like “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” and others that were removed from platforms throughout 2023. Executives can get back to the business of building content offerings, instead of zooming in on the bottom line of their balance sheets every quarter.

Profitability could also slow the wave of price increases that have gripped the streaming industry in 2023. All of the streamers that are forecast to become profitable in the next 18 months raised prices in the course of the past year, and Max and Paramount+ are likely to increase again in the near future. Price jumps aren’t likely to stop altogether at any service, but they could slow down to a pace of once every two years as opposed to twice in a year, like Disney's streamers did between Oct. 2022-Oct. 2023.

Profitability in its streaming division could be especially important for Paramount, as it tries to determine its future as a company. The entire company could be sold by its majority shareholder Shari Redstone, and a clear path to profitability could make it a more attractive asset to potential buyers. Alternatively, it could convince Redstone that Paramount is worth keeping ahold of, or at least Paramount+.

There’s no doubt that 2023 was a tough year for streaming platforms. But their efforts to make their services profitable seem to be paying off, as Ampere predicts that streaming services owned by Disney, NBCU, Paramount, and WBD will all be able to show quarter-to-quarter profitability by the first quarter of 2025.